All right, this is just totally too perfect. I’m re-reading Hume in preparing a lecture today, and found a passage which manages to tie together a bunch of posts I’ve done recently on the pleasures of my disabled kid, Humean… Continue Reading
The New Yorker has a piece up about the morality of having kids. I have heard various arguments that claim to show having children is immoral (e.g., because they will make more pollution). Now there’s a new book out called… Continue Reading
In which I indulge my inner Larry David. Possibly to become a regular feature. First (or maybe only) question: how many free samples should one take if there’s a tray of, say, cheese, or mangoes, or coffee cake, at the… Continue Reading
I kept meaning to write this post, and here it is! I know this was covered before elsewhere on this blog; but that was before my time, so I couldn’t contribute my pearls of wisdom. This is the theory I… Continue Reading
One of the banes of my teaching existence is the degree to which my students fail to respond to old movies. There are a few happy exceptions, of course, who love old movies – or at least, are eager to… Continue Reading
The Times has an article about professors who are seeking more frequent feedback from their students. A BU professor, Muhammad Zaman, asks for ratings from his students every other week and charts the results.
The CDC yesterday released a study showing that autism rates have spiked. 1 in 88 kids are affected. What the hell is going on? People have speculated about possible environmental cause, as the president of Autism Speaks seemed (arguably) to… Continue Reading
So, lots of parents like to tell other people how to parent. Including me. But I’d like to remind myself and others that perhaps one should judge not, whether or not ye get judged. The whole story is not apparent.… Continue Reading
Mark Bittman has an opinion blog post deriding the ability of food corporations to direct advertising to children. (An aside: how sad is it that Bittman has moved from the Minimalist column to opinion writing? His Minimalist column was a… Continue Reading
A point came up in the comments thread of my post on the Ashley treatment that I wanted to expand on a bit — talking about the developmentally disabled as “angels” of one sort or another. The parents of Ashley… Continue Reading